


Unwrapped

by 221b_hound



Series: Unkissed [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, John's toes, Licking, M/M, Oral Sex, Pet Names, Relationship Negotiation, Sherlock's Feet, toe fetish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-03 15:36:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1072167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Christmas morning. John doesn't really want the Christmas Sex that Sherlock proposes and explains the reasons why. Sherlock discovers a new element of how his desire functions, and later John gets to indulge his foot fetish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unwrapped

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [拨云见日](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2343218) by [shawnordaisy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shawnordaisy/pseuds/shawnordaisy)



> I'll be off trying to write Xmas fics in other universes for a while, but here's the first. Best of the season, if you celebrate it, however you enjoy it.

Christmas morning – their first as a couple – was not going quite how Sherlock had planned.

John was giving Sherlock a look comprising both surprise and concern. “You don’t have to give me a blow job for Christmas, you numpty.”

“But you like sex. You like orgasms, definitely. You’re supposed to give people you love something they like for Christmas. I’ve never done this for you.”

John looked at Sherlock lying across his thighs, his lovely mouth pursed in a very non-sexy way. More vexed, really.

“Sweetheart, I love you. I love the sex we have. I love giving you massages and singing you terrible songs that make you wish you were deaf even though you never tell me to stop. I love your eyes and that magnificent brain of yours. I love every bit of you. And that means that I don’t want you to go doing things of a sexual nature that you’d rather not do just because you think I want it. That won’t be fun for me, honeybee. You being uncomfortable and enduring things because you think I want them will never be fun for me.”

Sherlock sighed and eyed John’s persistently only semi-interested penis in a somewhat accusatory fashion. “I don’t _know_ that I won’t like it. I haven’t _tried_ it.”

“It doesn’t appeal much, though, does it?”

Sherlock scowled because John was right.

“Any more than anal penetration appeals to me, in either direction.”

“One bad experience with an old girlfriend, John…”

“And one of the guys I spent time with while you were dead.”

Sherlock scowled to hide the flinch.

“It was enough for me to know what I like and what I don’t like. Give me credit for knowing my own desires, Sherlock.”

Sherlock looked up at John, then, with an almost contrite expression. “As you give me for knowing mine?”

“Come up here, you gorgeous idiot.”

Sherlock took his time, dragging his body over John’s thighs, his stomach, his chest, until he was cuddled flush alongside his John. John had an arm curled around Sherlock’s waist.

“Give us a kiss,” said John, tilting his chin to offer his mouth. Sherlock was happy to oblige. After a few moments John, not breaking the kiss, tangled his fingers in Sherlock’s hair.

“This is good, you know,” said John when at last they stopped to breathe. “I’ve got the smartest and most amazing man in London in my bed on Christmas morning. Santa loves me a lot.”

“I can assure you that mythical characters invented for children’s stories and commerce do not enter into it.”

John only smiled and ran his hands down Sherlock’s spine, letting them come to rest on the curve of Sherlock’s backside.

“You do like my arse, though,” Sherlock observed.

“Yep.” John gave it a little pat. “I like looking at it.”

“I… don’t think I understand you, John.”

“What’s not to understand?”

“You like sex but you are content to merely… make out. You like my arse but you seem to have no sexual designs upon it. I want to ensure you are physically satisfied, even if our libidos are not matched, but you seem to be satisfied with less than a sexually active man of your age and fitness level would usually settle for.”

“You think I’m hiding something from you? That I’m getting frustrated?”

“No. I know you’re not. It’s why I’m puzzled.”

“Does it help you to know I sometimes wank in the shower while thinking of you? Okay, slightly more often than _sometimes_ , but not, you know, _excessively_.”

“I know that. Why do you think I stand at the door and talk to you while you shower?”

“Because you are perfection and you know how much I like your voice. See, I pay attention.”

“To that, you do. I know that you masturbate, but it is still less often than the norm. It certainly doesn’t explain the mismatch.”

“I think you’re forgetting a few things.”

“Really?” Sherlock was sceptical.

“One of which is that I love you, as previously stated, and for too long I thought I’d lost you. So waking up to find you here at all is pretty damned satisfying.”

That shadow passed over Sherlock’s face once more, as it so often did when they spoke of his… hiatus, but John was not going to pretend it hadn’t happened, and hadn’t hurt. It was part of their history. It was part of how they’d come to be who they were now.

“There’s also the fact that I just like to be touched. Just… I like it when you touch me, sweetheart. However you like to touch me.” He giggled. “You got all strange about my toes in the kitchen the other day and started kissing them while I was waiting for the tea to brew.”

Sherlock cleared his throat a bit self-consciously. “You time the brewing of the tea with the way you wiggle your toes. I find it… endearing.”

John giggled some more. “And the tea ended up horribly overbrewed because you messed up my count.”

“Ah.”

“Not a complaint. A fresh cup of tea is easy. You kissing my toes was fantastic. Slightly weird to start with, but I was right on board after the initial surprise. I’m rather keen to explore yours, too, if you’d like that. You have amazing toes. I imagine you can hold a pen in them. I expect you could write case notes with your toes if you had to.”

Sherlock’s smile was awkward and still a bit embarrassed. “They’re ambidextrous,” he confessed, “Though the writing is more legible with the right than the left.”

“Of course they are,” laughed John, “Of course you experimented. God, you’re brilliant. Can I then? Kiss your toes sometime? I think I’d like to suck on them a bit.”

Sherlock wriggled his toes. “We can try that.”

“Marvellous.” John buried his nose in the hair at Sherlock’s temple and nuzzled him.

“I still don’t understand.”

John sighed. “Me either. But I’m happy. I get to do things that make you happy. And I’ve done my share of… pointless fucking. I’ve fucked and been fucked by people I liked and people I thought I liked but turned out not to, and people who were just convenient, or who thought I was convenient and I didn’t mind that, it was fine. It wasn’t great, though. It satisfied the physical need, I guess, but more and more it left me feeling unfulfilled. I like sex, yes. I like orgasms, but I like them with you. I like them when you are in the mood for it, or when I’m alone but thinking of you, and knowing you’re right outside that bathroom door, for me to cuddle afterwards. You know that they say the brain is the largest sex organ, don’t you?”

“John…”

“All I mean is… who’s to say what’s normal for anyone? There’s average, maybe. There’s standard, or the statistical mean, but that’s just a scientific measurement of the sample group. Individuals don’t  always neatly fit on the curve, which you know perfectly well. What I _want_ is to be with you. What I _want_ is that when I miss you, there you are, and I can hold you. All that time we danced around each other before you went off, all that time I thought you were dead and that I’d never hear your voice again, let alone touch you, it’s awful how empty it feels to think of those times. And now, here you are, and we like it when we kiss and when we touch, and it doesn’t have to be sexual. It doesn’t have to be anything else except you’re here, and I’m here, and we don’t have to miss each other anymore. It’s not empty any more. Sex is good. This is better.”

John nuzzled against Sherlock’s temple again, then kissed his cheek. “And you know all of this anyway. You _know_ it. You just don’t _believe_ it.”

Sherlock closed his eyes and burrowed in close to John’s side. John grinned and kissed him. “Snuggle bunny,” he said.

Sherlock did that odd wriggle again, the uncomfortable-but-pleased reaction he had to new endearments John tried out.

“Snugglebum,” John said, and giggled, because it was ridiculous. He patted Sherlock’s arse again. “I can’t tell you how delighted I am you turned out to be such a cuddler. My Consulting Snugglebum.”

“John, you’re being ridiculous.”

“You like it when I’m ridiculous.”

Sherlock merely hummed a reply, rightly deciding that words, no matter what they were, would just convict him as guilty of the accusation.

“I’m still waiting for that list, you know,” said John, “of all those useless bastards who treated you so poorly. You can give me that for Christmas, and I’ll go and give them all a Yuletide black eye.”

Sherlock kissed John’s collarbone, then nibbled at it. “You know I find that arousing.”

“What?” asked John, startled.

“Your protective streak. It makes me want to give you an erection and make you helpless while I rub your cock until you come.”

“Ah…”

“Like this.” Sherlock’s hand brushed over John’s cock, which responded immediately.

“Sherlock, I said you didn’t have to…”

“I want to.”

John’s arm tightened around Sherlock’s waist and he hummed with pleasure at the touch. “That’s nice.”

Sherlock kissed John and stroked him to hardness in no time. He took a moment to bend down and kiss the head of John’s cock, making John moan wantonly. Experimentally, he licked, too, and then again, at the pre-come. Then he kissed the head one more time and returned to kiss John’s jaw.

“That wasn’t bad,” he said softly into John’s ear, “Quite pleasant. I don’t think I want you entirely in my mouth, but you taste perfectly fine.”

“Christ…”

“If I lick you some more, do you think you can hold still?”

“I…I…I…can…try….”

“I’ll hold your hips down.”

“Yessss. B-b-b-ut...” John opened his blissfully shut eyes and peered sternly at Sherlock. Well, he tried to look stern.

“This isn’t _Christmas Present_ Sex,” said Sherlock, “This is _I Love You_ Sex. It’s also me learning my own desires, which, as we’ve discussed, I am not fully aware of yet. You don’t mind being my experiment, do you?”

Sherlock stroked John’s shaft up, then down, so John’s reply was reduced to a throaty moan and a jerk of his hips, which he instantly tried to quell.

Sherlock shimmied down the bed and began licking again. He paused to say: “Tell me when you’re going to come.”

John whimpered. “Not going to take long.”

Sherlock grinned smugly and went back to licking, first the shaft, then the head. His hands were pressed firmly down on John’s hips, keeping him pinned to the sheets. Even with that weight holding him down, John’s body strained to resist the impulse to move, to thrust. Sherlock knew that this restraint was part of what John found so arousing, now. The conscious effort to keep himself still for Sherlock increased his pleasure.

Sherlock found this fascinating - not necessarily sexually, but he loved to study John. Sherlock was fascinated by the taste of all of John’s body (and was in fact cataloguing it in relation to the seasons, their diet and time of day – he had a notebook for the purpose). He also loved how John exercised his will at these times, as well as how he abandoned his willpower if Sherlock asked it.

And it pleased John, which gave Sherlock pleasure. Afterwards, John would be pliant and warm and a… a snugglebunny. _Ridiculous term._ Especially since John was obviously physically affectionate with or without the sex. Still, Sherlock loved to watch John let go, loved to please John’s body in the way it liked to be pleased, loved to kiss him before and afterwards, and, frankly at any other time as well.

John was right. About several things. One, that Sherlock was indeed a cuddle fiend. Sherlock had not had the first idea that he would ever be that. He’d have tried to curb the habit, except that he didn’t want to. Not in the slightest. John was right about that too. There had been too many days of emptiness. Sherlock intended to spend the rest of their days together absolutely full of John.

John was right about the other thing, too. Sherlock understood their dynamic perfectly, and it only remained for Sherlock to believe that John understood it too. Which he patently did.

“Call me that thing,” murmured Sherlock between long, wide, wet stripes of his tongue on John’s hot, hard, smooth skin.

“Sn-snu-?”

“The other one.”

“Ho-honeybee. Honeybeeeeeee.”

Sherlock, humming happily, licked with just the tip of this tongue, collecting nectar, then again with the broad, flat of it.

“Oh, god, sweetheart, my my my gorgeous, precious, beautiful honeybee…”

Sherlock’s brain buzzed with pleasure at all the lovely names. He was learning to believe those, too.

“Sh-sh-Sherl-aaaaah, I’m I’m…”

Sherlock pulled away and let his hand take over the ministrations. “Move, John,” he ordered huskily, and John began to thrust, moaning, and came all over Sherlock’s hands and his own stomach and chest.

Sherlock wiped them both down with the corner of a sheet and then returned to his snuggle bunny ways by wrapping John up in his arms and pulling him close.

“You can suck my toes later,” he murmured to John, “If you still want to.”

John replied with an affirmative but inarticulate growl and tugged Sherlock closer. Sherlock wriggled until they fit comfortably together.

“Do you know what I’d really like for Christmas?” asked Sherlock a short time later.

“A triple murder,” said John sleepily, “Locked room. No suspects. No obvious cause of death.”

“I assume you didn’t get me one.”

John giggled against Sherlock’s skin. “They’d run out at Harrods.”

“Ah, the Christmas rush,” said Sherlock, resigned, “You should have put one aside in July.”

*

Later, they got sort-of-dressed and went to the living room for breakfast. John, in pyjama pants and a T-shirt, made tea. He started doing the toe-thing to count off the minutes for steeping, caught Sherlock looking at his toes with that avid look again, stopped, then giggled and started again.

“This is for you,” said John soon after, delivering tea, toast and a brightly wrapped parcel to Sherlock at the table. Sherlock was wearing nothing but his dressing gown. Or nothing _and_ his dressing gown. He was apparently the smuggest man in London.

“Yours is under the tree,” he said airily to John, and sipped his tea.

John knelt by their tree and unwrapped a gift containing a gorgeously soft scarf and matching leather gloves in midnight blue, and a coffee mug in a box. Putting the gloves aside for later, he wound the scarf around his throat, delighted at its colour and softness, but he opened the box with a puzzled frown. He really didn’t need another mug; unless he did because Sherlock had once more used his favourite ones for experiments – and then found himself grinning. Inanely. Joyfully.

The mug came from Manchester. It was white with a pale blue square around its middle, and on the square was a quote about Manchester from Noel Gallagher: “ _It all comes from here_.”

“You sneaky sentimental sod,” he said, crawling across the floor so that he could kneel at Sherlock’s feet. Sherlock was in his chair, where he’d been pretending – not very well – to not watch John open his present.

“It’s Christmas,” said Sherlock primly, “You’re supposed to be nice to me.”

“I can be nice,” said John, putting the mug aside and kissing Sherlock’s bare knees. He sat back, pulled Sherlock’s feet into his lap and began to give him a foot massage. “Thank you, sweetheart, that was perfect.” His strong hands moved surely over Sherlock’s long, bony feet. “You have wonderful feet. Have I told you that?”

Sherlock gave him a look that said eloquently _You are quite mad._

John lifted Sherlock’s foot and kissed the top of it, then lifted it further and kissed the arch. Then he kissed each of the toes. “There isn’t a bit of you I don’t love.”

Sherlock wriggled his toes. “Do you want to see me write with them?”

“I do. But I want you to open your present first.” John set that foot down and lifted the other one to give it the same treatment.

It wasn’t quite a mysterious locked room triple homicide, but it was a folder containing two cold cases from the previous decade that John had finagled out of Greg Lestrade and a recent book on the plants both edible and poisonous to be found growing in the Greater London area. Besides illustrations of the plants concerned, it contained symptoms of poinsoning along with charts and reported attributable deaths.

Sherlock beamed. “You _did_ get me a murder. And material for _clues_.”

“Mm-hmm.” John was busy suckling on the toes of Sherlock’s his left foot. Sherlock watched him, fascinated by John’s apparent enjoyment. John looked up at him. “Yes or no?” he asked.

Sherlock’s toes felt oddly abandoned. He wiggled them again. “Yes.”

John went back to suckling them, then pulled Sherlock’s other foot into his lap and spread his attention around. That went on for a while, until Sherlock got ticklish and took his feet away. With a sigh, John leaned forward to wrap his arms around Sherlock’s waist and press his cheek to the other man’s sternum, revealed through a gap in the robe.

“Never be afraid that it’s not enough,” said John against Sherlock’s skin, “If I need something more or something else, we’ll talk about it. But don’t you ever think that you aren’t enough for me. You’re everything. You pillock.”

“I like the other names better.” Sherlock ran his fingers through John’s hair.

“You’re everything, then, my precious. My cuddlebunny. Snugglebum. Sweetheart. Honeybee.”

“And you, John. Everything.”

“Good. I’m going to sing to you now.”

Against the pale skin of Sherlock’s belly, John began to sing the worst Christmas songs he knew, in a light, pleasant tenor, until Sherlock kissed him to make him stop.

**Author's Note:**

> On the Visit Manchester store site, the Noel Gallagher quote is a [magnet rather than a cup,](http://images.nitrosell.com/product_images/6/1261/300_noel_magnet.jpg) but you get the picture.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Unwrapped [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6745087) by [Lockedinjohnlock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lockedinjohnlock/pseuds/Lockedinjohnlock)




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